Fine Lines
by Scarabbug
Summary: Perhaps it should go without saying that none of the Chosen Children are entirely psychologically sound. Set during Digimon Adventure 02. Chapter Six: If there’s one thing that the last four years have taught Ken, it’s that sanity is overrated. Complete.
1. Cody

**So then, I had a reason for writing this...**

**Even once you set aside the obvious examples, (Ken, Owikawa, TK, Matt...) it's obvious that nobody who was ever a Digidestined is going to be **_**entirely**_** right in the head. Not after the experiences they've had. They're **_**kids**_**. Thirteen at their oldest, **_**eight**_** at their very youngest, and yet their daily life is interspersed with battles, violence, destruction and outright **_**wars**_**. Hence, this story came about – a glimpse into the minds of the 02 Digidestined. I'll try not to be too incredibly weird. **

**NB: I'm using the dub names. Because frankly I grew up watching the dub. I remember the dub. I do **_**not**_** remember the exact honorific's and original Japanese language used by every character in the series and frankly I'm not gonna try. Like it or lump it, you get dub terminology from here on out. **

* * *

"_Correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't the fine line_

_between sanity and madness gotten finer?"_

-George Price.

* * *

Cody. 

Cody never smiles in the Dojo.

A quiet voice inside of him tells him he's not _supposed_ to smile. The thing in his hands is a _weapon_. Sure, it might be made of bamboo _now_ but one day, when he's older, it'll be sharpened steel, and wearing a _grin_ on your face which you're waving something like that around wreaks of Arukenimon's Chaos and Old-Ken's insanity and...

Well. It just doesn't feel appropriate, is all.

Actually the sharpened steel doesn't feel appropriate in _general_. Sharpened steel _kills_ things as efficiently as a Justice Beam or a well placed kachina bomb.

Cody Hida is only eleven years old, but he already knows what it feels like to kill something. Or at least, to watch it die because _he_ gave the instruction that allowed it. It doesn't make much difference to him. Death is death, whether or not there's a body life behind and whether or not you're dealing with something good or bad.

He tried explaining this to his grandfather and... Grandfather understood _that_ much, because Grandfather understands that people _die_ unfair ways. That's just the way the world is. Grandfather can see that there really isn't much difference between a body made of data and one made of flesh and bone. But Grandpa also knows a lot about honour and duty and Doing What Has To Be Done. He finds death a little bit easier to tolerate when he thinks it _stands_ for something.

Cody figures that grandpa knows a lot of things that only old people can really comprehend.

In his memories, dad is always smiling, like in the picture above the family shrine. Cody finds it hard to imagine his father ever _not_ wearing a cheerful, un-police-like grin. Maybe he even _died_ that way. The dreams he has are full of images like that: of his father smiling as he falls. MarineDevimon is tearing a hospital out of the ground and swallowing it and all it's patients whole, except that Cody's father is there and he's not dying bravely and heroically like in grandfather's story: he's dying as he falls from the roof of the torn out hospital and into MarineDevimon's gaping jaws with a thousand bamboo-cane teeth, and Cody is watching him fall, unable to do anything because TK isn't here and as soon as Shakkoumon realises that, he's going to de-digivolve and send Patamon and Armadillomon tumbling into the open jaws too. Or maybe TK _is_ there and he's just so chock full of anger that he can't look Cody in the eye and then that anger will get him killed because he'll charge into things without thinking and the first death Cody sees will be his DNA partner, lying broken in a wingless Angemon's arms. Or maybe it's Shakkoumon who's falling and his dad is already on the ground, still smiling like the photograph, data flowing where there should be blood and a bamboo sword through his ribcage...

The dreams are always vague and messed up and by the time he wakes up sweating and trying to catch his breath, Cody can't even remember who died this time. Only that somebody did, and that they were smiling the whole time.

Cody is an _intelligent_ eleven year old. He can work out junior crosswords without a dictionary and can find his way by starlight, in both this world and the digital one. But he _is_ an eleven year old, nonetheless, and while eleven probably doesn't seem like a great deal to an adult, it means a lot more when it's the difference between middle school and junior high. The difference between holding a sword and holding a lump of wood. The difference between calling something a bad dream and a nightmare. Experience. It all comes down to experience.

So Cody never smiles inside the dojo.

It feels too much like tempting fate.

* * *


	2. Kari

**This chapter of the fic was something-distantly inspired by another fic by the talented writer **_**Ayries Kukku**_**. The fic **_**she**_** wrote was much shorter and more intense, and was written for a different situation in the Sonic the Hedgehog fandom, but the basic concept –the idea of somebody walking alone around a deserted building, and thinking the kind of thoughts you usually try to keep out of your head in the daylight hours, is a theme which has stayed with me ever since. I'm glad I had the chance to write this down. :D So thanks to Ayries for the idea! **

**I'm pretty sure this fanfiction occured after Kari's first trip to the dark ocan, but before Kimeramon's attack. So yeah, Kari has issues, man. **

**Standard disclaimers apply. Reviews and concrit are appreciated. **

* * *

_"As human beings, we need to know that _

_we are not alone, that we are not crazy _

_or completely out of our minds, that there _

_are other people out there who feel as we do, _

_live as we do, love as we do, who are like us."_

-Billy Joel

* * *

Kari. 

They've all taken to arriving at school especially early in the morning, but Kari is always earliest.

The main building opens at exactly 6:00 am on schooldays, so that the cleaners can do their job, and Kari has learned that most people are too tired at that time of the morning to question the presence of a twelve year old girl with a camera around her neck wandering around the school hours before class.

The others have yet to question this –She doesn't live the closest to the school; that unenviable privilege falls on Davis who is _still_ late for registration every morning– and so long as no one does, Kari doesn't see any reason to tell them. Besides, this is a private ritual known only to Kari, the daybreak, and her Digimon, who also doesn't ask questions because Gatomon has a way of knowing what she doesn't _need_ to know. She likes to give her human the benefit of the doubt.

Kari loves Gatomon very much.

Still...

There are silent spaces, in the corridors and communal grounds and deserted classrooms, where there is time to think. In these times, Kari can wander, alone and silent amongst buildings with orange-gold windows, and pretend for that she's at peace with everything. That the Digital World exists only as an extension of this one. That things are _okay_ both there and here, and that there is no deep, cold greyness in-between the worlds, where a monster from her nightmares waits to claim her for his bride.

All because of some _crest_...

Kari knows she shouldn't think this way. It's not what's expected of her –not what she has come to expect of _herself_. She's the Child of Light for a reason, after all. Except that things are _not_ okay, and she knows it. They _all_ know it. The Digital World is at war.

It dawns on Kari one morning that this is probably the kind of thing crazy people do: wandering shadowed corridors, dwelling on things they can't control and replaying old memories over and over, like those funny Tentomon icons on Izzy's computer, which always cycle back to the beginning and start over so smoothly that you can't tell where the animation begins.

Thinking can be dangerous. It's a lot easier to _talk_ about saving a world than it is to think about it. Other people make it _real_. Other people talking about it tells you that it's really happening: _you're not alone, you were never alone, so stop doubting yourself and deal with it just like Tai would_.

_...Just like Tai. _

Except that Tai isn't going insane.

Kari knows she's okay really. She _knows_ it. She remembers this fact very specifically every time she remembers TK's smile banishing the chill of the dark ocean. Every time she looks at Sylphiemon, who couldn't even _exist_ if it weren't for Kari's... _not-aloneness_. She knows that they are the Digidestined chosen to protect the Digital World, and that their Digimon partners are fuelled by the strongest emotions humanity can muster. It's just that sometimes...

Well. Sometimes, like right now, Kari knows it's not as simple as all that. Because she knows that the Crests are only as strong as the people yielding them. Because she knows what happens when a Crest Keeper forgets to be Hopeful or Brave or Kind. Especially Kind. Because she knows that the Digidestined are _tools_ and that the world's survival hinges entirely upon the psyches of a bunch of _children_ who should be worrying about grades and homework and soccer practise, and not about which Digimon is coming out of a Control Spire this week. Because she knows that they're fighting a battle that was too big for them last time and is still too big for them now.

The evil is still out there growing stronger every second that they're not paying it attention, and it absolutely will. Not. Stop. Until there is nothing left to fight.

And then? Then it'll probably fade away and die too, because without the light there is nothing to define the darkness. There's no way that light can exist without dark, or love without hate, or hope without despair. Kari isn't stupid. She knows how much of their survival is down to sheer damned luck.

These aren't the kind of thoughts she shares with the others. They'd probably think she was being crazy.


	3. Davis

**This one was **_**always**_** going to be hard... because when you get down to it, the very thing that makes Davis crazy is the thing which makes him **_**normal**_** by comparison****when he's placed alongside the other characters. He doesn't panic too much about anything, except for the insane maniacs that keep trying to kill him, and somehow, I wonder whether having no worries at all makes him as big a freak as ****anyone else. **Davis. 

* * *

_"If I couldn't laugh I just would go insane, _

_If we couldn't laugh we just would go insane, _

_If we weren't all crazy we would go insane."_

- Jimmy Buffett

* * *

Davis.

Sometimes Davis wonders whether his sister is right to call him a Freak of Nature.

She knows about the Digimon stuff and how scary and whacked out the Digital World tends to be, and when she stares at him in bug-eyed alarm while he calmly explains away what caused the bruises and shaken tempers _this_ week, and then she tells him he's an absolute _maniac_ for running into such things without thinking (or even facing them at all), then... Davis can't help but think that she might have a point.

And it's not that he doesn't _care_ about these things, of _course_ he cares. He loves Veemon to death and he _hates_ the fact that the little guy will so gladly throw his life on the line every day for no better reason than that Davis _asks_ him to. It's just that nothing ever gets fixed by worry. No Control Spire has ever been taken out by your standing there and staring up at it with an apprehensive look on your face (_yeah, I'm talking to you, Ichijoji, I _know_ you're doing it_).

Just today, for example, he was explaining how BlackWargreymon ripped himself into pieces to seal a dimensional barrier, and it took Davis several seconds to work out exactly _why_ June was looking at him like... well, like he'd just told her something really crazy. It was only then that Davis realised he was using the same voice he used when he was ordering a pizza on the phone, and that it kind of makes him sound like a jerk when BlackWargreymon was doing something so totally (disturbingly) heroic for them...

But he doesn't _mean_ to be a jerk. He's just telling it like it is. The way _It_ is, is often rather strange and disturbing.

In fact, they should all probably be gibbering wrecks by now. Davis figures that any _adult_ would be. But maybe that's why the Digidestined are kids in the first place –kids can deal with new stuff when it's thrown at them, but adults think they know everything already, so when somebody comes out and tells them "_hi yeah, there's a whole world filled with weird data creatures hanging over your heads and I'm keeping one of them in my bedroom –just so you know, that's where all the candy bars in the house have been going and it wasn't _me_ eating them_"...

_Apprehensive_ is a weird word. He didn't actually know the definition of that one of until the whole Digidestined thing started, but it seems to fit for all of them. They're always so _apprehensive_ all the time, even when they're laughing over something dumb that he just did.

It makes him think of Izzy who always seems to be muttering to himself and biting his lip while typing away at sonic-speed on his keyboard. Or of Matt, who hardly ever seems to _smile _for crying out loud. Of Joe and his constant stream of allergies and neurosis. Of TK and his weird, crazy I'm-gonna-kick-evil's-ass-and-take-a-whip-in-the-face-before-beating-the-snot-out-of-you mode, or Kari who he wants so badly to push behind him every time a Control Spire monster comes after them, except that there's no point, because Kari knows darkness so well that she can feel it coming in advance, and there's no way he can protect her from what she already knows is there...

He wouldn't say that he jumped at the chance to be a Digidestined, but hey, he's not just wearing the cool goggles because they're a fashion statement. He's wearing them because they're connected to Tai and Tai would never sit and dwell on something when he could be _fighting _it_. _

Still, sometimes even Tai has a look on his face like the world's about to collapse on him. And as for _Ken_... Well, Davis thinks, if guilt alone could knock down a control spire...

Davis doesn't want to end up like that. The way the _original_ Digidestined have ended up (and he's not sure Ken counts, but he's been around at least as long as Kari, even if they never knew him. Something obviously got messed up in the system one time which meant he never got called up with the others. Davis would like to ask about it someday when he thinks he can do so without sending the guy into one of those mental breakdowns that he always seems to be on the cusp of.

And he can totally get why the others freak out so often. Because it's scary. It's _war_. He's _had_ the dreams, just like the rest of them. He's watched Veemon dying in his nightmares, over and over and over, from egg to DNA, and back to egg again in a blaze of fire and pain. Davis is sure that he's no different from any of the other Digidestined, in that respect... It doesn't mean you're crazy, it means that you're _not._ If he _wasn't_ having weird dreams now and then he'd probably be a lot more _. _

It's just that once the dreams are over they're over. Once the fight is won or lost, it's won or lost. And it's nearly always _won_ anyway, so why freak out about it? There's nothing they can do about it. nothing except for fight, and win, and then go out and find _another _fight, and maybe find time for a pizza and soda break in between. And then they can almost imagine the world is normal again and this whole war in the Digital World feels further away than it probably is. Davis isn't even going to try and work out how far it is in _reality_, because that involves the kind of quantum mathematics and Izzy-speak that makes his brain hurt....

That's all he's ever wanted.

And then, whenever June is giving him that "_What the hell, little brother?"_ face, Davis starts to think that maybe he's _not_ the only sane one in the group after all. He's just crazy in a completely different way.

And that would probably worry him, if he were the kind of person who _did_ worry about these things. But he's not so that's okay. He'll leave the panicking to Yolei, the crusader-from-hell-ing to TK, and the outright angst to Ken (or Cody if Ken is otherwise preoccupied). And he'll just keep doing what he's always done – fighting and yelling and laughing at his own bad jokes...

And things will work out in the end.


	4. TK

**This is the longest chapter yet, though that doesn't really surprise me, given the subject matter. I have... a certain kinship with Tk for just the reasons that this fic will detail. Anger, as I have discovered, is a disturbingly powerful thing.**

* * *

"_When one has been angry for a very long time, _

_one gets used to it. And it becomes comfortable, _

_like old leather. Finally... becomes so familiar that _

_one can't ever remember feeling any other way."_

_ -_ Patrick Stewart.

* * *

TK.

If anybody ever asked him, TK would tell them that he never dreams.

This would be a lie. He has dreams all the time; he just can't remember them afterwards. He only knows they happen because every now and then he'll open his eyes, realise it's still three am and that his heart is pounding like there's half a dozen Botamon bouncing around inside his chest. Or that there are red marks around his fingers where Patamon had resorted to biting as a means of waking him up. TK has the same genes as his brother, and Matt could sleep through an _apocalypse_ if he had to. It takes a lot more than one bad dream to wake a Takashi.

TK isn't sure why this is. The last dream he can _remember_ having was a bad one, and that was years and years ago now. He thinks sometimes that maybe he's reliving it every time he goes to sleep. He doesn't remember dreaming about it because he doesn't _need_ to. The memory alone is enough to keep him going.

...The memory alone is enough to scare the hell out of Cody, make Kari cast him worried glances, and Ken flinch whenever their eyes meet for more than a fraction of a second.

Which is weird, because TK isn't angry with Ken anymore. The anger dissolved a long time ago and was replaced with joint study sessions, subdued phone calls, and debates about the plots of the latest thriller novels, but...

Well. That's the thing, really, isn't it? Because TK isn't angry with _Devimon_ anymore either. He isn't angry with BlackWarGreymon. He isn't angry with Owikawa, or Puppetmon or Etamon... Hell, VenonMyotismon had creeped him out, but TK isn't sure he's angry with _him_ anymore either, because it's actually difficult to be _completely_ mad at someone who, for whatever horrible reason, gave you a few moments of the deepest happiness you've ever felt...

So no –TK isn't angry _with_ anyone in particular.

He's just _angry_.

There are a lot of directions in which he can point this anger. Some days he's angry at Matt for never being there, or his dad for taking his brother away, or his parents for separating. Other days he's angry at Daisuke for not thinking hard enough before opening his mouth. Or he's angry with _himself_ for not knowing the answers on a maths test or for not living up to the Crest he's supposed to personify. But none of these sources feels very specific. None of them feel like they're quite the right reason for being angry. It's just hostility transfer in progress, working his anger out of him via whatever routes it can find.

TK knows what _really_ made him angry. But...

Well. That battle was over a long time ago, wasn't it? Maybe he _is _still angry with Devimon in a way. It's not a tangible anger, and there's no target to point it at, but it's _there_. It's anger towards a memory which isn't aware of him. Anger for all the things he could've said and didn't, because he was only _eight years old_, just a little boy and he hadn't _known_...

It's the stuff he said when he had Ken's body pinned beneath his own, hands at his throat, voice that TK barely even recognized as his own screaming in his ears. And it's only now, two years too late, that TK starts to realise that it hadn't been a good time to fight _at all_.

Wrong target. But be damned if letting it out hadn't made him _feel_ better. For a while, at least.

It's like something that Matt said once. TK can't remember how old he was at the time or how the subject came up in the first place, but come up the subject had: Anger is a feeling just like anything else. The longer you go around feeling something the more familiar it becomes and the more you start noticing its absence. You can't imagine it being any other way. It's like a pair of old jeans that're falling apart, but that you hang onto anyway because they're comfortable and familiar...

And Anger and the Hope are tied together, aren't they? You can use anger in different ways. You can let it rage inside of you or channel it into a target. Some of the greatest achievements in history came about because somebody was angry enough with the way things were, and hopeful enough that they could make a difference, to try and change the world.

And with his friends around, it's easier. They talk to him, sometimes saying nothing in particular and sometimes saying everything important. They sit together in parks, each others rooms, and the backs of classrooms and just _talk_ constantly. Sometimes one of them says something that worries the others a bit, and so they talk about that too, and TK can start to look at what he's thinking in a completely different way when he's seeing it through someone else's eyes.

It must look strange to others, who see them all sitting together and talking and laughing just like any old friends –but also like something much, much deeper. Their crests have bound them together tighter than any normal friendship could. They reflect him, and absorb him, and he absorbs and reflects them back. They make him see the worth of the crest he bears. Because every person defines themselves in relation to the people around them. TK's hope is as much defined by Kari's light and Davis's courage as it is by himself. Hope comes from without as well as within.

Eventually, TK knows, he'll get round to telling them how angry he feels, and then they'll look at him with a wry "_duh, really? We hadn't noticed_" expression. He'll tell them about the dreams he can't remember, and Davis will probably start recounting a seemingly random dream that _he_ had once, and somehow (TK isn't sure how, precisely) they'll help him work it all out, just by talking with him.

Eventually. But for now, the old, worn out jeans are a comfortable fit, and he's not sure he can let them go yet.

* * *


	5. Yolei

**This was one of the harder ones to write, because at first, in comparison to the other guys, Yolei often seems pretty well adjusted XD. And then you bring the Dark Ocean into the equation and... Well, things get a little more complicated then, even for her. **

**I chose this particular quote because sometimes the things which we consider our weaknesses may also be our strengths. Sometimes I wonder whether Yolei forgets about that. **

* * *

_"I got well by talking. Death could not get a word_

_in edgewise, grew discouraged, and travelled on."_

–Louise Erdrich

* * *

Yolei.

It's not that Yolei minds working in the store. She doesn't find it half as boring as her siblings seem to. She gets to meet a lot of interesting people and sometimes dad lets her take snacks for free, it's just that... Well, the patrons sometimes look at her funny, and she's fairly sure it's not because she has a Poromon sitting on top of the cash register, providing useful commentary and customer service.

It's because Yolei opens her mouth, and instead of just saying "thank you for shopping with us, please come again" like any normal shop assistant, she always ends up babbling. For example, she'll start telling a customer how good the new hair clip she's buying will look with that skirt, but only if she changes out of those shoes first; or telling another that her kid is pulling faces outside of the door and could he please stop, because it's going to freak out the other customers; or casually mentioning that someone's smile kind of reminds her of a Nyaromon she knows. A really nice_,_ really _cute_ little Nyaromon.

...What's so strange about that?

It's not her fault. Yolei can't help it if her thoughts keep turning into words without her instruction. And she can't help if other people don't get what she's saying half the time and look at her funny. It's really not fair, because if she's part of a team of (what are practically) superheroes in the digital world, who have saved the planet from destruction several times over, then how is it fair that people look at her as if she's some kind of freak? When half of them are probably thinking the same thing that she is, just not saying it out loud...

Personally, Yolei blames the Crest of Sincerity. People think that Davis is the impulsive one in their team, but really, Yolei knows she has him beat in spades. Sometimes, she tells Poromon, as they sit behind the cash register five minutes from closing time, she really doesn't understand people. Poromon usually concurs with her. He's great like that. He always understands. This is surprising, really, given the number of times she's messed up because she can't think before she acts...

Yolei also says to her friends that sometimes, she'd like to be one of those people who's always thoughtful and considerate, who communicates with simple gestures and expressions, and only speaks occasionally with words that are laden with meaning and significance, like Matt (well, he certainly doesn't _talk_ that much), or Cody. It's just that she can't seem to shut up_._ It's only when everyone is looking at her with that strange, familiar smile that Yolei realises she's babbling _again_. So she laughs, blushes and stuffs potato chips into her mouth to quieten herself down.

She dreads ever going on a date because she knows she'll make a total mess of it. The guy probably won't be able to get a word in edgeways all night, and she'll order the wrong thing on the menu (not that her first date would be any place fancy enough to _have_ a menu) and she so sucks at editing her thoughts before they come out of her mouth that she'd probably say something really stupid, or unintentionally rude, or get mad at something pointless because she's so nervous and yell at the waiter and scare her date into the _next_ Valentines. Her feelings just bubble to the surface, and trying to hold them back...

Well. It's difficult.

Because none of it is ever really babble. Not really. She means every word that comes out of her mouth, and that's another thing which makes it hard, because Yolei doesn't lie, or edit the truth, or think before she speaks, because Yolei Inoue doesn't work like that. When she's angry she yells and cries and panics until somebody (thank you, Kari) has to hit her to get her to calm down. She talks as much with her body as with her mouth. Sometimes she talks and talks and struggles to get what she's feeling, be it good, bad, happy or angry, into words and yet can't find a way to do it without confusing everyone.

Yolei is just like any other teenager. She laughs and cries and freaks out over the littlest things, and she just doesn't get why nobody else _understands_... She may not be as freaked out as the others, but just because the source of _her_ angst doesn't have some kind of deep, otherworldly, freaky origin doesn't mean her feelings count for nothing, does it? Just because all she wanted in an evil-Digimon-induced hallucination was dessert and solitude while her friends wanted resurrection and absolution and world peace doesn't make her a bad person, right?

There are days –like today, for example– when she wants to just grab Poromon and race to the nearest Digiport and beg him to Digivolve into Aquilamon fly them somewhere –she doesn't care, anywhere's fine. So long as it's far away from people and she can yell at thin air for as long as she can without anybody giving her funny looks.

The problem is she can't really do that when she's supposed to be on duty at the store. So Yolei just sighs, grits her teeth, and hopes to god that that's Ken walking through the door right now, because if it's just that customer who she _mistook_ for him the only day and waffled at for ten minutes without realising he was just some random guy come to purchase aspirin, then she will just _die _of embarrassment.

* * *


	6. Ken

**While I wrote this, I had music by Graeme Revell and Steve Jablonsky going through my headphones. believe me, it's the most oddly appropriate music you can possibly imagine, except maybe that stuff with ethereal chanting from anxious Tibetan monks in it. **

**So yeah. Hard chapter, this one, but not as depressing or as unnerving as I think many might have expected it to be. This chapter signals the end of this fanfiction. I wasn't planning on going outside of the 02 Digidestined, so this is pretty much all I have for you for now. Thank you for reading and offering your thoughts and reviews. I had... as much fun writing this as I could, given the subject. **

* * *

"_What do you call love, hate, charity, revenge, humanity, _

_magnanimity, __forgiveness__? Different results of the one _

_master impulse: the necessity of securing one's self-approval.__"_

_- _Mark Twain.

* * *

Ken.

He probably shouldn't be here.

He knows this. Every nerve ending in his body and every conscious thought in his head is aware of it. The Dark Gateway closed what feels like a long time ago, but is really only a few months. A few months since Kari had gripped his hand and held onto it tighter than anyone ever had before, even Sam when Ken was small and they were crossing a busy intersection together. A few months since Davis practically rammed their forgiveness down Ken's throat, and the pain of the Dark Spore splintered through him for the final time.

It feels like much longer.

Approximately one night every month, Ken finds himself here, standing barefoot in sand that's always inexplicably dry, no matter how many times the waves cover the beach. The Dark Ocean doesn't appear to have any kind of tidal pattern. He isn't sure whether the reaction is psychosomatic and it's just his imagination that takes him back. It _feels_ as real as it ever did, only... less numb, Ken supposes. Because he's not hiding anymore. He's not afraid and he isn't lost; he's simply _there_.

People (specifically Davis) tend to think the Dark Ocean is a cold place –like the real ocean on a winter's day. To a person like Kari or Yolei it probably is. But they came to the Ocean for different reasons. They never really _wanted_ to in the first place; they were dragged there by the darkness inside. Ken came of his own free will. The Ocean has never been cold to Ken –not entirely, anyway. It's lukewarm, except for on the surface. Like a skin of ice above a warm undercurrent.

Wormmon had asked him about it once. He had seemed slightly disturbed by Ken's description of standing in the Ocean as being like standing in a warm hug, all the way up your legs. He remembers the first time he visited, it had felt the same way. Warm with his pain and spite, to comfort him in his grief and draw him inwards until there was no way out.

Once, just to experiment, he took his D3 out of his pocket and held it beneath the water. Nothing happened, except maybe for a faint trickle of energy racing back up his arm. Izzy would've called that a dumb move. _Reckless. They don't know what could happen. They shouldn't mess around with forces they don't understand_. Izzy forgets, though, that Ken _does _understand. He understands better than any of them. The Dark Ocean may have seemingly created the D3, but the D3 is just a tool, manifested by something inside of _Ken_.

Some monotheist religions have a concept called purgatory: the place where the virtuous but non religious end up after their deaths. Ken isn't sure how accurate the analogy is, but the Ocean certainly _feels_ like the descriptions of purgatory he's heard in the past –peaceful, melancholic and lonely. Maybe a little threatening, but it's not the world itself that threatens you; the Ocean is just a Parasite of the Digital World and the human, it's your memories and thoughts that make it what it is.

Another time, Ken walks until he reaches the lighthouse,. It's still standing somehow, and probably always will be no matter how many times they might try to demolish it. When he gets there, he finds that it isn't a lighthouse at all. It's a control spire, with a dark light carved into it. It's not one of his, but Ken wouldn't be surprised if it was the first. If it appeared the moment he plunged his Digivice beneath the waves and watched it become the first D3. He sits beneath the Spire for a while with his back against it, watching the tide going in and out. Sometimes he catches a glimpse of shadows, and hears the call of creatures in the clouds overhead –they're never close enough for him to see (or for they to see him, thankfully) but they're there. Evidence that this world is more than a dream. He's not alone in purgatory.

And really, there's no point in telling himself it will ever get better than this, because Ken might not be a genius anymore, but he's not stupid enough to believe that. The sadness and guilt will always be there deep down, and so will that little spark of chaos that turned him into the Emperor. Or brought the Emperor out of him. Whichever.

If there's one thing the last four years have taught Ken though, it's that sanity is overrated. Or rather, over_estimated_. Everyone has their own definitions of "appropriate" and "right", and, at one time, Ken Ichijoji would have apparantly fit quite neatly into all of them. Except that he never did. Not really. _Nobody_ ever does. Everyone has their own Dark Ocean. True, most don't exist in a _tangible_ sense, but that's just their good fortune and his bad luck, Ken supposes.

Ken likes to think of the Ocean as a warning. Kind of like visiting a prison must feel: it's strange, melancholic, and a little disturbing, but you know that so long as you stay on the straight and narrow, so long as you remember the pain you're capable of causing and ensure you never act it out, you don't have to be afraid.

Prisons are for convicts. Ken isn't a convict of the Kaiser anymore. Maybe he never was; after all the Kaiser was a part of him as well – not some distant, split personality the way Izzy had once theorised, but another aspect of Ken's personality that he doesn't to like very much.

And in a strange way, the Ocean is a beautiful place.

He doesn't need to come here for warmth anymore. Maybe the ocean is knows this. Maybe that's why it no longer hangs over his head like a nightmare: just a vaguely unsettling dream which has no more power than he allows it to have. All he has to do to leave is smile, or laugh, or speak out Davis's name under his breath, and the dream which isn't really a dream always ends with a warm snigger and the sensation of a hand wrapping around his wrist

_We're right here with you. _

So long as he doesn't run into Daemon, Ken reckons he'll be alright.

* * *

"_People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality; their __feelings most of all. People talk about how great love is, but __that's bullshit. Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are __taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with __love if they're afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People __try to hide their pain. But they're wrong. Pain is something to __carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain.__It's all in how you carry it. That's what matters. Pain is a feeling. __Your feelings are a part of you. Your own reality. If you feel ashamed __of them, and hide them, you're letting society destroy your reality. _

_"You should stand up for your right to feel your pain.__"_

- Jim Morrison


End file.
